Freese for sale, and he delivers
Alt-rock drummer extraordinaire Josh Freese is honoring the promises he made as part of an outlandish marketing campaign he cooked up to promote his new album “Since 1972.”
One 19-year-old fan from Florida decided that rather than investing $20,000 in a car, he’d prefer to hang out for a week and play miniature golf with the onetime member of Nine Inch Nails, the Vandals and A Perfect Circle.
Thomas Mrzyglocki snagged one of the pricier premium packages that Freese offered over his website for those who buy his second solo album. The physical CD comes out today.
The $20,000 package, a limited edition of one that Mrzyglocki bought as a birthday present to himself, included a mini-golf outing with members of Tool and Devo, a night aboard the Queen Mary, two songs about him that Freese will record and post on iTunes and his choice of any three items from Freese’s closet.
“I couldn’t believe this kid had spent that money, so I didn’t want to just go play golf, hand him a drum and then take him to the airport,” Freese said Monday. “I didn’t just run down the list and give him the seven or eight things on it. . . . We did a lot of fun stuff and boring stuff. He ran some errands with me and played video games with my son. There were a lot of extras.”
The promotion was done as much to generate attention as cash, but since it began last month, Freese has sold all 25 of the $250 premiums (lunch with Freese at P.F. Chang’s or the Cheesecake Factory), one of five $2,500 items (a drum lesson, a trip to the Hollywood Wax Museum with another member of Devo or the Vandals) and two of three $5,000 packages (a private tour of Disneyland, a note from Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard describing his favorite song from Freese’s album and a song and a video about the buyer).
“I’m eating at P.F. Chang’s or Cheesecake Factory every day now, sometimes twice in a day,” Freese said. “Even when it’s a pain in the butt, I pinch myself because I thought this crazy stuff up. It seemed like a cool and funny idea, and now it’s a wacky reality.”
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